Well-Hungover

I interviewed Devon Allman, son of Gregg, last night. Afterwards, we danced until almost 2 a.m. Unfortunately, the newly-opened bar is still waiting for a beer and wine license. So we were in and out all night, surreptitiously pouring liquor in our cups of soda. And since my measuring gets a little sloppy as the hours pass, I find myself hung over as hell this morning. The wages of sin....

So the transcription of this interview will just have to wait until I can think without this pounding inside my skull.

NTD

Requiem for a Truck

I bought two things in late 1993 which changed my life. One was this house - built in 1941, it looks all the world like a south Georgia farmhouse except that it sits in the middle of town. It was the first piece of real estate I bought all by myself, with hardly the credit to justify the loan. In other words, I begged the mortgage company; I begged the Visa company for a card since there was almost nothing in my name thanks to a long marriage to an old-fashioned man; and although I have never been my own best landlord and have a passel of undone repairs, this house is, for all intents and purposes, mine.

Three months after the mortgage papers were signed, I bought an Isuzu pickup with hardly a thought beyond "I want a truck". It had air conditioning but no power steering. But it was new, shiny, black and the dealership gave me a loan. One thousand dollars down.

It is still mine, even as it sits in my driveway since yesterday morning, apparently dead from a cardiac arrest or stroke (see, although I never named Truck, I still consider it an aging, loving relative). I plan to have it towed to Billy's Imports - he, being an old Isuzu truck owner himself, is the only person I would trust to issue the death certificate. I hope that he might want Truck for parts to keep his own little 4 cylinder going.

The day before, I drove Truck to Savannah and back. It handily travelled the sixty miles there, but began to jerk and ungear as I headed back home on the interstate. By yesterday morning, I tried to take it to get the oil changed and checked out, and it lurched and heaved and took several minutes of crawling at 7 mph to get it back to the driveway.

Truck has not been pretty for over a decade. First, a rotten ex-boyfriend dropped one of his ever-present Camel Filters onto the upholstery and left a cigarette burn. Later, he drunkenly jimmied the glove compartment and left the door misaligned. Then, in 1997, an uninsured motorist creamed the front right end. I never repaired it. The black paint began to fade, then oxidize in the fierce south Georgia sun. I doubted its salability by 2000, and relegated it to a secondary vehicle after I bought a Saturn.

Truck was a road warrior back in the day. It has taken me to get stumbling drunk in the French Quarter; down south Texas backroads to a Mexican border town; at least two hundred trips between the Appalachian mountains and my Georgia home; to punk shows and jambands, through school carpool lines, biker rallies, camping, Grateful Dead concerts and the gates of Graceland. One pair of South Carolina speeding tickets, one breathalyzer (passed, easily) - those are the only police actions committed while in the truck. It looked so bad toward the end, that I believed that I could haul diamonds in the back (the camper top lock broke years ago) without fear of theft. The worst that I ever transported was a case of Tennessee moonshine for some buddies, and those days are in my past. My beau at the time and I left the remains of a quart jar at the Buford Pusser Memorial in McNairy County, Tennessee. We always wondered what happened when they found that one.

R.I.P. Truck.

NTD

Once again, I didn't watch the State of the Union speech. My personal boycott of this endless presidential term continues. I listened to NPR this morning and heard the highlights (or, perhaps more accurately, lowlights). Bush never fails to leave me unimpressed. I feel un-Bushable.

Today is supposed to be the loose end-tying day. Two oil changes, one visit to the accountant, the bank, laundry, store orders to be placed, car pool line at the high school, phone calls to confirms newspaper interviews, the post office, dish washing... this is why I prefer to blog dreamily about love, music and hot tubs. The real world is pretty ordinary at my house.

NTD

The Love Edition

Love is metaphysical gravity. - Buckminster Fuller

I've been working on my contribution to what must be the most annoying puff piece ever regarding Valentine's Day. I blame the managing editor, but as news/features editor, I really could have respectfully declined. The sad part is that I can write this stuff with one hand tied behind my back. I am good at it. I can channel an entire sorority raised on Self magazine effortlessly. It's embarrassing, the way my shallowness manifests itself.

Perhaps I am just an excellent mimic.

Because Valentine's Day should be about honoring the inexpressible depths of yearning and lust and needing. Romantic love is a force to be reckoned with. It is bondage with another soul. Love creates a grounding which Fuller speaks of which one does not even realize is missing until the person gives himself to it. Suddenly the lover becomes home and nowhere else feels like home.

I don't even know who St. Valentine was. But I do know something about love.

But the cover story focuses on balloon bouquets and varieties of chocolate ice cream and tickets to sporting events. I suppose it's appropriate enough for a college town newspaper. I dislike the way that these assignments bring out the worst in me, though.

NTD

view from a hot tub

A hot tub is a dangerous thing. It's like the best of mind-altering substances... dom perignon, or Berkeley lsd, or repeated viewings of Casablanca, or a Taj Mahal concert. The steaming pool shifts one's perspective, particularly when said hot tub is on a deck hanging off a cliff overlooking several miles of valley rising up to the higher foothills/smaller mountains of the Tennessee portion of the Appalachian mountains. Especially when the temperature hovers in the lower thirties and the cold air/hot water is a yinyang of blissful sensation. At the moment that the Godiva martini shoots its chocolatey-vodka goodness into maximum intracranial stimulation at the hypothalamus or wherever the experts believe that pleasure resides most fully... I do believe that ecstatic experience was achieved, and without the difficult contortions and techniques suggested from ancient texts. I'm sorry, universe; but sometimes a modern American woman just wants a vacation.

Everything has been different since the baptism by hot tub last week. I gave my newspaper notice for the editing job; in two weeks I will be no longer editing puff pieces and fifth-rate submissions. It's back to political commentary and interviews, and maybe I will have time now to consider short fiction. I bought flower seeds and peat pots, a reishi mushroom kit, and am considering xm radio. Sunflowers and Deep Track classic rock is my future. For my shop I ordered the largest selection of tarot decks I've ever carried.

I hope that I am not turning into a midlife flake.

Peace, love and swirling jets of hot water for all -

NTD

goodbye, radio userland; hello, blogger

The Radio Userland blog software has been clogging my elderly hard drive for too long. I have watched my favorite writers jump ship to other blogging tools for a year. Finaly, I understand why.
I will always love you, salon.com... but it's time to move on to a kinder and gentler site.

For those who still care to peruse my archival wares, they're at:

blogs.salon.com/0004709/

NTD